Costs run high for Cannon bike lanes

Six months ago Hamilton city staff started work on a proposal to improve one of the main arteries in the north end. Cannon Street is a major route for westbound traffic through the city core. But area residents refer to it as the ‘Cannon expressway.’ They want slower, safer streets — and bike lanes to promote a more liveable neighbourhood. Those ideas went to the general issues committee of council Wednesday morning and the plan got a pretty rough ride.

The push for bike lanes on Cannon Street was spearheaded by a group known as ‘Yes we Cannon’ — but for a while it looked like city council was poised to say ” No we Cannon-not!” as the lead consultant for the pilot project rolled out a cost estimate that was roughly three times larger than what councillors expected. Terry Whitehead is a city councillor: “I didn’t hear you say anything about a cost-benefit analysis. Because at the end of the day, there’s only one taxpayer.”

And that taxpayer was suddenly looking at numbers that jumped from $300-thousand, to $867-thousand just to install the pilot project. There’s another $728-thousand in operating costs over three years and nearly $200-thousand a year for snow removal, to keep the lanes open year round.

A total cost of roughly $1.6 million to install roughly four kilometers of bike lanes. That works out to nearly $400-thousand per kilometer.

There were also questions concerning public consultation — with some suggesting that the issue had been hijacked by a relatively small, and bike-friendly interest group.

Terry said: “To go to a stakeholder who is a very strong advocate of bike lanes if not necessarily an objective of process in terms of defining a terms of reference.”

Brad Clark is also a city councillor: “Our vision is to engage citizens. Not to engage special interest groups, but to engage citizens.”

Councillor Whitehead even asked the consultant for IBI Group Donna Moores whether wider public consultation might be a good idea: “Yes, I think it would be a great idea.”

But the suggestion that public consultation wasn’t adequate — enraged the councilors from the wards where the bike lanes would be established:

Jason Farr: We are bettering their neighbourhood!!”

Brian McHattie: “This is a project whose time has come.”

And David Stephens of the “Yes we Cannon” group insists that there was widespread consultation for the plan: “We all have web pages, web sites and community newspapers for civic engagement. We haven’t had any negative feedback. I’ve even done a bit of door knocking; there’s been newsletter involved.”

And in the end, councillors voted unanimously to go ahead with the pilot — which Brian McHattie says is a great thing for Cannon street residents: “The property values on Cannon street are about to go through the roof.”

But it will take three years to determine whether the cost of the project will do the same.

You may be asking ‘why $860,000?’ Well, they do have to replace about 20% of the poles on the street along with putting up barriers, paint, traffic signage, and signals. Of course this still has to be approved by the entire council. But given today’s unanimous vote — that appears to be a certainty. That means that construction of the bike lanes could begin this spring — and the public will soon have at least three years — to decide whether the benefits of bike lanes on Cannon Street — will truly outweigh the costs.